A restaurant owner was operating their business without the legally required operating permit, which had expired six months earlier. One evening, a customer began choking on a piece of food in the restaurant. The restaurant owner approached to assist but did not perform adequate first aid measures because they lacked training. The customer died shortly after. Authorities later discovered the restaurant’s expired permit and charged the owner with misdemeanor manslaughter. Does the restaurant owner’s expired operating permit provide sufficient grounds for the misdemeanor manslaughter charge?
No, because the restaurant owner acted in good faith when attempting to assist the customer.
No, because the customer's death was not causally connected to the fact that the restaurant lacked an operating permit.
Yes, because operating a business without a valid permit is a misdemeanor punishable under state law.
Yes, because the restaurant owner’s lack of proper first aid training is evidence of negligence.
The correct answer is based on whether the misdemeanor (operating without a permit) caused or contributed in some way to the customer's death. For misdemeanor manslaughter, there must be a causal connection between the misdemeanor and the death. Operating without a permit, on its own, is unrelated to the choking incident and does not contribute to the death in any legally cognizable way, making the charge inappropriate. Other answers fail because they either incorrectly infer the required causal connection or misapply legal liability principles.
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